› Business Lessons from World Champs

Something was different about this year’s Yankees team.  During the run to their first World Series victory since 2000- they successfully navigated the difficult task of incorporating dynamic new talents Nick Swisher, CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett & Mark Teixera into a veteran, established roster.  This investment paid off in the form of another World Series title.  Intuit’s recent announcement of the acquisition of Mint.com left me wondering – could the folks at the software giant pull off the same feat?

For years, Intuit has frustrated and antagonized customers by releasing annual ‘upgrades’ that seemed to lack any kind of value-add.  The promise of better integration with more financial institutions never seemed to materialize and the tedium of data-entry required the diligence not much different from old-school checkbook balancing.

Enter Mint.com, which changed the game in three fundamental ways:

- It was free

- Software was delivered via the SAAS model – meaning no client software to install and no more upgrades

- Account aggregation was simple and worked – resulting in little if any data entry

From Intuit’s perspective, the $170 million acquisition makes perfect sense:  Mint.com’s innovative, web-based platform simultaneously adds a fresh Web 2.0 dynamic and eliminates a serious threat to one of their flagship desktop products, Quicken.

The real question is whether the company that was accused of trying to intimidate the startup in February can really now welcome it into the corporate clubhouse. Only time will tell whether this acquisition is a home run or strikeout, but sometimes following the Yankee’s model works: acquire so much talent that it makes failure seem almost impossible.

Posted at 11/7/09 by tking in Industry Trends, News & Views Tags: Baseball, Industry Trends, Intuit, Mint.com, Technology Acquisition, Yankees | 3 Comments »